Chapter 10 #2
Dad lecturing me from behind his desk like I’m just one of his men and not his trusted son and heir stings. But I trust Lucy. I grasp her curls, making her surrender her mouth to me, but not quite kissing her. “I want you with me. Will you come with me, my love?”
“I always want you,” she breathes, and then corrects herself. “Want to be with you.”
“Then be with me, my love.” Rolling on top of her, I reach between her legs, stroke along her sex, and find her clit, teasing her slowly. She licks her lips and opens her legs wider for me. Every circle of her clit makes her breathe faster.
“Damiano, please,” she whispers.
I’m enraptured by the glorious surrender on her face. She moans louder the more aroused she gets, and I have to keep shushing her. I press a kiss to her panting mouth. “Shush, my love.”
She nods urgently, but then another wave of pleasure takes hold of her, and she moans again. Lucy can’t or won’t remember to keep her voice down, so I take my hand away.
“No. Please don’t stop. I’ll be quiet,” she whispers urgently.
“You promise?”
She sinks her teeth into her lower lip and nods, pleading with her eyes.
“You’ll keep quiet while I fuck you with my fingers?”
“I will. I swear it.”
“You want me to fuck you with my fingers?”
She seizes fistfuls of my shirt. “Yes. Yes.”
I love when she’s needy for me. I crave it like oxygen.
I need to seal this promise to each other by making her come.
With a hand pressed over her mouth—because I know Lucy can’t keep her voice down to save both our lives—I ease my middle finger into her.
She whimpers around my hand as I start to pump my finger into her.
A groan of my own escapes my lips. Her pretty pussy is so tight and slippery around my finger.
I add another finger, her moans muffled by my hand.
I keep moving my fingers in shallow thrusts and rubbing the spot behind her clit. Her wetness is all over my hand.
Lucy escapes my smothering hand and cries out.
“You can’t help yourself, can you?” I seethe, clamping my hand over her mouth again. “Goddamn little troublemaker who can’t keep quiet while I fuck your tight pussy with my fingers. I should just shove my cock down your throat so you can’t make a sound.”
Her eyes flash with pleasure, like she likes the sound of that.
All in good time. I’m having too much fun blasting her with my fingers.
“I’m so good to my pretty Lucy, aren’t I?” I whisper, pumping in and out of her. “I’m so fucking sweet to my brat. You’re going to come so hard to show me how grateful you are.”
Lucy nods as much as she’s able with my hand pressed over her mouth, and then her face flushes red. Her core clenches on my fingers, and her back arches as she comes, her breasts thrust upward. Fuck me, she’s magnificent. I keep thrusting my fingers. I don’t stop until her legs are shaking.
I take my hand away and lean over her, power and victory surging through me. I’m going to take what I want from now on. Lucy. Malus.
Everything.
“Good girl,” I whisper, pressing kisses to her damp, cooling skin. “So fucking pretty when you come. We’re going to show everyone in Malus who the real Barones are.”
I keep my arm tight around Lucy’s waist as we enter the restaurant.
It’s closed for the night, and the lighting is dim.
Most of the chairs are already upturned on tables, and the waitstaff has gone home.
This was the most neutral place we could agree on for our meeting, at the edge of Barone and Vici territory, and not far from Montoni streets.
I’m armed, and so is Lucy. So are our invited guests, and we each have a handful of soldiers outside.
It’s not a friendly meeting, but it’s not a hostile one either.
At least, I’m hoping that’s the way it’s going to go.
“You’re sure about this?” Antonio had asked me in the car on the way here, concern etched on his face.
“The Sokolis are getting bolder every week,” I’d told him. “And Dad’s stuck in the old ways. If I wait for his permission, we’ll all be dead.”
Antonio hadn’t looked convinced. Neither had Giovanni. They’re loyal to me, but they both know I’m going behind Dad’s back. If this goes wrong, we’re all fucked.
Our guests are already present, sitting around the table in the middle of the room with drinks before them.
Don Vincenzo Vici, his hair slicked back and wearing a black suit and tie that no doubt conceals an array of weapons.
Don Cristiano Montoni, dressed in an expensive black V-neck sweater with the sleeves pushed up past his elbows.
Rafiel Lucania, with an easy smile but sharp eyes, wearing a tight white T-shirt and sporting so much ink there’s not a bare inch of skin on him.
There are guns and phones among the glasses of whiskey.
Rafiel’s motorcycle helmet is on a table nearby.
Vincenzo swigs from a beer bottle. Dad would hate this.
There’s no assembly of dozens of capos in a show of authority.
No formal greetings and stiff tradition.
He’s too old-fashioned, and he would patronize and insult these men for not being like their fathers.
But their fathers are dead or locked away. We are the new Malus. Fresh blood.
The new leaders.
As Lucy and I approach, her side pressed tightly to mine, Cristiano casts a speculative gaze over my sister, which lingers too long for my liking. Lucy is wearing the canary diamonds that Cristiano wanted to buy.
His eyes narrow. “I didn’t know we were bringing our women.”
“That’s not his woman,” Rafiel tells him. “That’s his sister.”
Cristiano looks pointedly at my arm around her waist. “Sister. Sure. Nice to see you again, Miss Barone. Does your brother ever let you out of his sight?”
“Never,” I answer for her, in a tone that tells him he’s stared long enough. The new Montoni don is unmarried, young, and arrogant, and he can look elsewhere for his bride.
I pull up another chair for Lucy and sit down beside her at the table.
Rafiel offers her a glass of white wine, but she shakes her head and accepts water instead.
I do the same. Tonight isn’t social, and I want to keep my head clear.
I called this meeting behind my father’s back.
If it’s a success, I might get away with it without my viper tattoo being burned off with a hot poker.
If it goes to hell, I’m fucked, and so is Lucy.
“So why have you called us all together, Damiano?” Rafiel asks. “Is this a murder mystery night? Are we going to solve a crime?”
Vincenzo’s lips tilt in a smile. “A murder? I probably did it.”
“No games,” I assure the men. “I thought it was about time we all sat down together as friends. We five are the future of Malus.”
Vincenzo glances at Lucy. “Your sister included?”
I reach for her hand and hold it. “My sister included.”
“Just because things have always been done a certain way, it doesn’t mean they have to stay that way,” Lucy says, gazing at each of the men. “We’re tired of the old traditions, the old rules. Aren’t you?”
“Barone business is Barone business,” Rafiel says with a shrug. “I don’t have a problem with you.”
“Sure,” Vincenzo says softly, but without feeling.
Cristiano says nothing, and I decide to take that to mean he’s not going to cause a fuss about Lucy being present.
I get straight to the point. “There’s been a lot of bad blood in Malus.
Understandable tensions between our four families.
The Barones have been feeling outside heat from the Sokolis, and some of you have been getting it from them, the Dervishis, or both.
I think it’s time we reminded them that it’s our city. Not theirs.”
“And how are we going to do that?” Cristiano asks, with ironic emphasis on the we.
“That’s what Lucy and I were hoping we could discuss.”
“If we’re going to work together, we have to trust each other. You really think that’s possible?” Vincenzo asks in an icy voice, glancing at Cristiano.
“I would have a hard time trusting the son of the man who murdered my family, but you have Adora in common. You have Malus in common. The sins of the fathers do not have to be laid upon the children.”
Vincenzo glances at Lucy’s hand, which is resting lightly on my forearm. “Easy words, Barone. Cheap words. If my father had murdered your sister, you wouldn’t be sitting with me having a friendly little drink.”
My chest feels tight at even the suggestion that someone might hurt Lucy. “I understand how hard this is for you.”
“You understand shit,” Vincenzo seethes.
Rafiel sits back with a shake of his head.
“Something about this doesn’t feel right.
We’re all heads of our families, in one way or another.
You’re not, Damiano. I have a hard time believing Don Carlucci would send a woman into negotiations.
I don’t believe you have the authority to speak for your father. ”
“Who said my father sent me?” I ask, my voice hardening.
“Will Ariana be coming to meetings next?” he asks with a lift of his brow.
“She’s not your business either.”
Rafiel’s face hardens with dislike.
“Rafiel, I thought you didn’t have a problem with me,” Lucy says.
“I don’t have a problem with you. I have a problem with Damiano. This meeting is bullshit. It’s obvious that Damiano is making a power play against his father and wants to drag us into it.”
“You think so?” Cristiano asks. He’s smiling, but it’s a cold, taunting smile. “Or maybe Damiano doesn’t go running for Daddy’s approval for every little decision he makes. That must be tiring when your father is in prison.”
“Fuck you,” Rafiel seethes.
This isn’t going down like I’d hoped. After so much bloodshed and animosity, maybe it’s too late for any amity between our families.
I hold up a hand before Rafiel and Cristiano can lunge over the table at each other. “Last time I checked, we don’t need our parents to drive us to playdates. I don’t have to get anyone’s permission on who I call my friends. I decide that for myself.”